A resonant voice in African-American scholarship, he is the author of The Signifying Monkey: A theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars and Colored People: A Memoir based on his childhood in a small community in West Virginia. Chair of the Afro-American studies Department and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard, he is revered for his engaging critical analysis of race and culture in America and his work recovering black writers from obscurity.